Saturday, February 7, 2004

Ryan and I headed up to Provo today to pick up a few more fishing supplies (I got a fly tying vice and hip-waders) and to scout out the Provo River for some secluded spots to fish.

We did fine at the tackle shop, but by the time we got out of there and did a few other errands, it started to cloud over pretty fierce. It wasn't at all in yesterday's forecast for partly sunny with scattered snow flurries, but it started snowing when we got off the last stretch of valley river we wanted to scout.

As we started up the canyon, it began to blizzard. Snow started to cover the road and before long, we hit a patch of ice under the snow and started to fishtail wildly back and forth while I tried to continue a fishing story I was relating to Ryan. I got it under control and we decided to just abort the mission, but there were no really safe turnarounds at that point.

We passed a quad-cab Chevy pointed off the road the wrong way in the borrow with another truck and a car helping, so we slowed to a crawl. We still had little Hondas whizzing past, but we were doing alright at fifteen mph.

We turned around and headed back and passed another crash scene involving a van, three trucks and a car with several vehicles on the scene helping before we got out of that canyon and were grateful to get back into the traffic-choked valley with no snow pack for speed demons to cause too many more accidents with.

No photos to show, so sorry, we'll see what is seen tomorrow after my speaking engagement at the Gunnison Valley penal institution.